Sketch of Allan Pinkerton

In October 1873, as the nation was plunging deeper into depression, and Gowen's fortunes seemed to be wavering, he reached out to the celebrated detective Allan Pinkerton. According to Pinkerton's own account of the meeting, Gowen had decided that the AOH was little more than a front organization to cover for the Molly Maguires. He told Pinkerton exactly what he wanted.

"What we want," Pinkerton would later quote Gowen as saying, "is to get within this apparently dark and cruel body, to probethis festering sore upon the body politic."

James McParland

Pinkerton, a flamboyant character in his own right, had just the \ man for the job. His name was James McParland, an Irish Catholic immigrant who, having grown up in a Protestant orphanage in Ulster, understood the Protestant ethic, and could quote the King James version of the Bible chapter and verse, a talent generally eschewed by Catholics of the time but much prized by Protestants.

Then just 29, he had an eclectic background. Before he immigrated to the US in 1867, he had worked as a stock clerk, a farm laborer, and even a circus barker. During his brief time in the United States, he had worked as a sailor on the Great Lakes, and for time, ran a liquor store in Chicago that ultimately burned to the ground in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.

In their treatise, Boyer and Morais describe him this way: "He had red hair, a sweet tenor, a large capacity for whiskey and a past that was said to have included a murder in Buffalo."

McParland seemed "a merry fellow," they wrote, "ever ready for a fight or a frolic until one looked into his eyes. They were was a cold as a cobra's."

Pinkerton had chosen McParland because he felt he could easily mix among the miners and that he was the type of man who wouldn't be troubled by thoughts that Gowen's efforts to break the back of the AOH was "persecution for opinion's sake."

By all accounts, McParland, who adopted the name James McKenna, quickly fit in with the miners. He claimed to be a counterfeiter, which proved to be a clever ruse to explain the fact that, unlike the other miners who labored in the pits he always had enough ready cash to buy a round of drinks.

In an 1894 article in McClure's Magazine, entitled "The Overthrow of the Molly Maguires," author Cleveland Moffet relates what may be an apocryphal story, but one that nonetheless sheds light on the cultural mores of the Irish miners that McParland managed to exploit.

"After some weeks of reconnoitering on foot through the coal regions, the young detective arrived in Pottsville, where he established himself in a boarding-house kept by a Mrs. O'Regan," Moffet wrote. "There he met a man named Jennings, who volunteered to show him the sights of the city that same night. Passing a noisy drinking-place called the Sheridan House, McKenna, for that was McParland's assumed name, proposed going in. Jennings warned him as he valued his life never to cross the threshold of that place.

"'It's kept by Pat Dormer,' he said, 'the big body-master of the Molly Maguires. He stands six feet four, weighs two hundred and fifty pounds, and is a bad man.'

"McKenna noted his companion's frightened tone, but, far from being disturbed by these words, rejoiced to find himself so soon on the right scent. Later in the evening, having given Jennings the slip, he went back to the dangerous saloon and entered without ceremony, finding himself in the midst of a noisy company, most of them drinking, while some danced to a screaming fiddle. Things moved on rapidly enough during the next two hours. McKenna, having invited all hands to the bar, paid for a second round of drinks; and then, springing into the middle of the floor, danced a flying hornpipe, to the full approval of the assembled Irishmen, who were all Mollys. He completed the favorable impression thus made by singing a roaring song, and was then invited to a game of cards, Pat Dormer himself being his partner, against Jack Hurley and another big ruffian, named Frazer, who used to boast that he thrashed every stranger who came into camp.

"'You've got six cards in your hand,' said McKenna to Frazer, after a few minutes' playing; 'that's too many in a game of euchre.'

"'You're a li—"

"'Am I? " said McKenna, seizing Frazer's big hand in his sailor's grip, and making him show half a dozen cards.

"The result was a fight in the handball alley, which Pat Dormer lighted up especially for the purpose, the company of Mollys ranging themselves in an appreciative circle to see Frazer demolish the plucky little fellow, who, though strong and agile, was far out-classed in height and weight. In the first round Frazer caught the detective a swinging right-hander under the ear and knocked him down, while the spectators applauded. But the battle was not over yet; for McKenna's blood was up, and he was a hard hitter, his arm being nerved by the consciousness that much depended upon his victory. Six times in succession he floored the bully of Pottsville, and the seventh time Frazer fell heavily on his face and failed to get up again.

"McKenna immediately became a hero."

email print